


in this world full of strangers

by beastepic (arainthatbindshearts)



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 03:56:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arainthatbindshearts/pseuds/beastepic
Summary: Claude doesn't sleep. Lorenz is suspicious. There's a letter from the King of Almyra.





	in this world full of strangers

The candle was still burning, casting moving shadows over the rumpled sheets when Lorenz woke. He would have rolled his eyes had they not painfully rebelled against the sudden clarity after the peaceful darkness of sleep. 

"Claude," he groaned, thrusting his arm in his lover's direction. "You said you wouldn't stay up for more than half an hour."

A distracted hum as his hand connected with a warm body; then movement from right next to him, the bed tipping toward it, and pair of pleasantly cool palms sliding over his face, thumbs touching his eyelids and covering them from the tilting light. 

"Oh? But how do you know it's been more than half an hour?" Claude's breath ghosted over his lips as their bodies fitted knowingly against one another; a familiar weight that still robbed the breath from Lorenz's lungs. 

"Please." He circled his fingers around Claude's wrists. "As if it were the first time. What is it this time? The Alliance—" A brush of lips against his, which he avoided by tilting his head in order to keep speaking or, as Claude would have put it, nagging—"or Almyra? I do believe we do not have to worry about the Empire anymore." 

Eyes still covered, the huff of a breath was the only warning to the next attempt at kissing his mouth. Having said his piece, he parted his lips to allow Claude's tongue to brush against his; he couldn't help but return a smile for the triumphant grin stretching Claude's lips. 

"Nor about Those With the Creepy Gothic Name either," Claude murmured, as Lorenz let one of his hands slide over his shoulders, cold where they'd rested against the iron headboard, and traced a path down his spine. 

Claude moved his own hands, uncovering Lorenz's now less sensitive eyes and gathering the mess of his loose hair in his hands. 

Then the kissing stopped, and Claude leaned away only enough to give Lorenz a raised eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

Lorenz, unused, untrained, unable to imitate Claude's levels of subterfuge, felt warmth rush to his face. 

"Whatever do you mean?" 

But Claude had trapped against the mattress his right hand, the one searching blindly the other side of the bed for what had kept Claude awake through—if that coming through the window was indeed the first lights of dawn—most of the night. And not any night: They had fought and killed Nemesis a week ago, and every evening of their slow journey back to Derdriu was a celebration if not as grand—resources needed to be minded—as heartfelt as that first post-victory night; Lorenz was left exhausted after the festivities, and he didn't travel on a wyvern's back several feet above the ground. 

"Indeed, whatever do I mean?" Claude fell back to his side to lean on his elbow, leaving Lorenz to miss the weight of his body, but allowing for a very remarkable sight—tousled curls framing a face in the dark only slightly marred by fatigue; shadows lining the plains of Claude's neck and shoulders and chest; the sheets pooled around his waist. "What was this hand—" Bringing said hand to his lips—"searching for?" 

"If you must know—the reason you are going to fall off your wyvern tomorrow for lack of sleep and leave a nation devastated. It would be a tragedy if such an important report were to get lost in the sheets." 

Claude exhaled a soft chuckle. "Devastated nation? Not devastated Count Gloucester?" 

"My father never much liked you, if you recall." 

"Ah, you know how to twist the knife." 

It was impossible to maintain a serious façade when Claude started his antics: the exaggerated gestures—hand over his forehead as if a maiden having a fainting spell—the muscles of his face rearranging themselves to mimic the worst possible actor in a not very successful opera house, because he never quite managed to stop his lips from twitching, devious and mischievous and reminiscent of their academy days; only, Lorenz was in on the joke now. 

But where Claude would have kept the ruse going, endless wit and charm as long as he was willing, now something seemed to pass over his eyes, only for the briefest of moments, smile freezing in place. 

Most of the time, Claude was impossible to read. It was easier when he was tired, as he was now, because he tended to forfeit sleep in search of a solution to whatever riddle plagued his thoughts. But the war was supposed to be over, won and done with, and Claude was hiding something from him that had now etched a frown into his brow. 

"What is it?" Lorenz said, trying his best to ignore his heart now beating battle-drum-like against his sternum, sitting up and folding his legs beneath himself to better search Claude's face. 

Claude shook his head, gaze falling to their laced hands. "It's nothing," he said. "Everything's—"

"—under control. Yes, of course." 

The flickering candle—by then practically extinguished—danced behind Claude's back, but the sun had started its ascent and the window over the bed allowed the faint newborn light to hover over them both, Claude's features clear but his eyes troubled when Lorenz made him meet his gaze by tilting his head upwards. 

Impatience would have possessed Lorenz had they both not been through a war five years too long; had they not clashed during their academy days, and argued and learned. But the number of lost tempers and slammed doors on their past discussions—all of them on Lorenz's part, he very much was aware—had made something very clear: that the look in Claude's eyes now wasn't him trying to hide anything. 

Finally, Claude sighed—and how Lorenz wished it were one of his theatrical whims. 

"Just how perceptive are you going to get?" he said, but was already rising from the bed. 

Without bothering to gather any of his clothes he walked to the modest desk in a corner of the room. Lorenz followed, wrapping his silk robe around himself, too preoccupied to fully appreciate the expanse of Claude's back or the curve of his spine. 

"Here," he said, and waved a piece of parchment in front of Lorenz—expensive, he could tell at once, ink so black it seemed to weigh on the crisp, pale paper. 

"Weren't you reading in bed?" 

Shaking his head, one hand pushing back the curls that fell around his face, "I already have it memorized. I just—needed to think," he said.

As soon as the—Lorenz saw now—letter left his hands Claude sprang from the desk's side and started to pick up his clothing from the floor—both himself and Lorenz guilty of the littering of garments. 

"You know I don't know enough Almyran to read this," Lorenz said. His learning curve owed both its successes and failures to Claude—who had been the one to start teaching him until discovering he deeply enjoyed teaching Lorenz some words which would most definitely, if that was indeed the Almyran King's seal, not going to appear in this letter.

"I guess that's one thing I should have taken seriously."

Lorenz waited, the limits of his patience stretching and stretching, until Claude was half-dressed, lacing his trousers, and finally opening his mouth. 

"To sum it up—although I know you enjoy all the court pleasantries—the King of Almyra requests my presence at court."

Lorenz gaped, first at the letter, then disregarding it completely, at Claude, sitting on the edge of the bed and shoving his boots on. 

If this had occurred months ago, when Lorenz was still coming to terms with Claude's identity as an Almyran prince, he would have had to very ungraciously sag on the nearest chair. But months had passed, and Nader and his soldiers were a rambunctious and constant presence on the march north. 

"Well, 'request' may be a bit of a generous—"

"But that's wonderful!" Lorenz exclaimed. 

Claude froze, only one boot laced. "Is it?" 

"Is this not what you wanted? Fódlan united, and if Almyra is willing, the borders opening. This is definitely a step, a beginning—" He stopped, because Claude was on his feet now, apparently out of items of clothing in which to invest his restless energy. 

Giving up on the search for his shirt he faced Lorenz at last, a hand running through his hair.  Lorenz closed the distance between them; the deep breath Claude took stealing the air from his lungs. 

"I wanted— No, nevermind that. What do you want, Lorenz? Now that the war is over?"

"Me? What has that to do with anything?"

"Please. Indulge me."

"We have discussed this. House Gloucester will lead the rebuilding effort. Our priority must be to restore supplies to the most affected territories, the war-torn towns and villages. What used to be the Kingdom is what has suffered the most destruction—"

"No, no, no. What do you want? Caspar and Linhardt are apparently going to travel the world? And Raphael can't wait to see his sister again. And Hilda has plans to open an artisan academy!" Claude flung out his arm as if trying to encompass something too great for words. 

"I already told you: I want to rebuild Fódlan— No. I want to build a new United Kingdom of Fódlan. By your side—"

And, _oh._

"Oh," Claude echoed, like he could read his mind, like it was his heart coming to a halt trying to understand the way the world had just fractured around them. 

There was a sad smile twisting his lips, a smile that now matched that strange look in his eyes that Lorenz hadn't known how to interpret, where to place, because he had never seen Claude look like that. 

"I would have warned you, if I had suspected the letter would arrive so soon…" Claude pressed his palms hard against his eyes. "It was the fight with Nemesis, apparently, which was a hit at court and—what do you know!" A joyless burst of laughter echoed out of him. 

Lorenz had closed his eyes at some point. Opening them, he saw Claude had seamlessly substituted his expression for a more closed-off one, a smile that came closer to his usual debonair look. But his eyes—

Anger flared in Lorenz. Not at Claude—he didn't know exactly at what. All he knew was that it proved useful enough to turn the world back to its axis, to unclog his bottled thoughts. 

"Does the letter specify a date?" 

"Oh, you know." He waved a hand in front of himself, as if to swat away a fly. "The King requests your presence as soon as humanly possible—blah, blah—understanding the whole post-war situation but mentioning the literal fleet of wyverns he put at your disposal, which is very capable of traveling to Almyra in like two days.

"I can stall until we select a new leader," he added after a pause. "Probably."

"Then we'll do just that," Lorenz said, raising his hand to brush a stray curl away from Claude's forehead. 

Claude widened his eyes—shocked either at the soft touch or at the calm words Lorenz had somehow produced from the tumult inside him. It was certainly a before-untasted challenge, to be the one to catch Claude unaware for once. 

"But afterward, I'll have to leave. It's far too soon—"

"Yes, well. We will—make arrangements, contingencies. I fear you will end up enjoying them all." He tried for a smile. 

An unhurried pause followed, long enough that Lorenz thought maybe he'd done something wrong: maybe he was supposed to fling himself on the bed and moan about kings and heirs and impossible dreams—as some immature part of him wanted. But he understood Claude, all that he wanted to achieve; he wouldn't be his Claude if he ignored the path he had long ago chosen. 

"What have I done to deserve you?" Claude muttered at last, letting his head fall until his forehead rested on Lorenz's chest. "I thought—" Shaking his head—"Nevermind."

"Yes, we can agree you think too much, my dear." 

Knocking his head against Lorenz's sternum was Claude's simple answer. And then, "I really thought—or wished I guess—that we had more time," he said, voice muffled against Lorenz's chest, quiet and sincere and bare. 

It wrecked something inside him—not only because of the rarity of the moment, but because the sentiment was so exactly replicated in his heart—oh, to have Claude by his side, rebuilding a kingdom without a countdown or an expiration date. 

Yet it was Claude in his arms now, strong after all, after everything, after having had his plans broken and remade and broken throughout a five-year-long war; and in his strength, tempering Lorenz's own.

Lorenz let his breathing slowly get used to that of Claude's, his arms holding him close until the warmth spread inside him, allowing the tension of the morning to dissipate, his heart to find a calming rhythm. 

The candle that had woken him had long ago melted completely away. 

Then— 

"Now you are just taking advantage of my goodwill," Lorenz said, lips twitching against Claude's temple. "You seemed impatient to get dressed just a moment ago." 

"Yes, but I can't find my shirt," Claude said, and his hands continued sliding down Lorenz's back, his mouth finding the sliver of skin the robe left uncovered. 

Lorenz sighed, heart picking up speed under Claude's ministrations; the wet brush of his tongue, the strong hands bunching the robe around his hips, so close to touching skin. 

"Claude." An unchecked sound, only half-word, when Claude reached the spot beneath his ear. "It's late. We're supposed to be leaving—" 

"They'll wait for us." 

The hot breath so close to the skin made extra sensitive by Claude's mouth sent a shudder down his spine, and he was clutching Claude's shoulders to him, digging in his fingers and revealing in the sound Claude made deep in his throat—thank the goddess his shirt had left the room unannounced. 

Finally, Claude tilted his head up to capture his mouth in a kiss, surging forward and pining Lorenz against his body by the grasp on his hips. The lacing of the robe undone by the circumstances, his whole naked front pressed against Claude, and Lorenz couldn't help but cry out, finding Claude's firm thigh very artfully poised between his legs. 

"Oh, Lorenz, Lorenz," Claude said, voice rasp, bliss in his voice, as Lorenz rocked against his thigh. 

Lorenz cocked his head to kiss him, to feel his name leave his lips, and Claude grabbed him by his hair to keep him in place and deepen the kiss, his other hand guiding his hip. 

Pleasure built gradually, hot and heavy, against the friction. Claude had bunched the robe around his hips to access his skin, to dig his splayed fingers in his flesh and guide his thrusts better. It caused the robe to slid down and annoyingly restrict his shoulders. Lorenz tried to disrobe without breaking contact—an impossible task, he may have realized, if not for the all-consuming building bliss. 

Claude stepped back then, and Lorenz swallowed his complaints, because Claude was sliding his hands over his shoulders, underneath his robe until it fell and pooled, purple and black on the floor. 

"Goddess, you're beautiful," Claude said, taking a moment to look at him, from the dip of his waist to the hair no doubt tousled wild around his face. "What do you want?" 

He didn't seem to notice the repetition. Claude had asked him just a moment ago what he wanted, and Lorenz had only wanted to live his dream by his side—their dream. Now, although an abyss of unknown possibilities opened up before them, there was one constant, one thing he knew for certain: what he wanted, above anything: Claude; happy and unguarded and looking at him like he was—eyes dark and wanting. 

"You," he said, made nonsensical by desire and love. "Only you." And he walked Claude backward until his knees hit the bed. 

Laughing, mirth in his eyes, "I was going for specifics, sweetheart," said Claude, dropping on the bed. 

The exhilaration dimmed in his eyes when Lorenz kneeled before him, eaten away by desire turning his eyes dark. 

Lorenz wasted no time, humming appreciatively when Claude gathered his hair in his hands, he brought his mouth to meet the plains of Claude's hard stomach, hands balanced on his strong thighs, which parted to make room for him. 

Claude exhaled loudly when his tongue met his skin, thighs tensing. It was delightful, to look at Claude from beneath his lashes; the red lips parted in wonder, his face undressed of everything but pleasure—and frustration, when Lorenz kept avoiding his cock. Claude's hands tightened on his hair, a pleasant pull that wrenched a gasp from his throat. 

"I thought—ah—" A full-body shudder when Lorenz pressed against his groin—"We were in a hurry." 

His trousers didn't manage to conceal his desire: straining and tenting the fabric, laces stretching. He sighed when Lorenz unfastened the garment, underpants wet were they covered his leaking tip. 

"Fuck, Lorenz." When he finally closed his lips around him; he felt his own cock twitch, unattended, responding to Claude's gasps and breathing and nonsensical mumbles as he tensed. Lorenz pushed his chest until he lay flat on the bed, grabbing his hips to keep them still as his mouth worked around his cock. 

The first time he had done this to Claude, it had surprised him how hot he found giving him pleasure, how loud Claude was and how unrestrained in his praise, particularly when Lorenz hollowed his cheeks around him, chasing the bitterness that steadily leaked from him. 

There was only one thing he preferred to bringing Claude to completion like this, and so when Claude warned him he pulled off, pressing one last kiss against the juncture of leg and torso while recovering his breath. 

The floor disappeared from beneath him as Claude manhandled him onto the bed, groaning when he tasted himself on Lorenz's mouth. 

"Where's the oil?" Lorenz asked, crying out when Claude wrapped a hand around them both, and the feel of their cocks sliding wet against one another, Claude heavy on top of him—it was almost enough.

"The oil," he managed to repeat. 

"We have a hard ride ahead of us today," Claude said, tightening his grip. 

In any other occasion he would have chosen the sensible option, but the news of Claude's departure—even if they had some time still—erased any other possibility from his mind: "I want you inside me, now," he said, and "Fuck, fuck, alright, just—" Claude shuddered, stilling his hand on them both abruptly—"Give me a minute. You're going to kill me." 

Lorenz turned around as Claude produced the vial of oil from wherever it had ended up after their previous night. He couldn't help but notice how different that had been from their frantic actions now—their lovemaking slow the night before, Claude kneeling, hands clutched on the headboard against which Lorenz had pressed into him again and again, until he had wrapped a hand around Claude's throat, and Claude had thrown his head back on his shoulder, painting the ironwork of the headboard with his seed. 

Words beyond him as Claude finally pressed one smooth finger against his entrance, Lorenz let all thoughts dissipate with the stretch and the strokes inside him; quick fingers, used to working a bow and with the dexterity to prove it, making swift work of Lorenz, who found himself trembling and gasping in a moment, the whole weight of Claude's body pressing him to the sheets. 

"There, there—oh." His knuckles were white as he clenched his fists on the sheets. "Claude, please—"

"Mm. I got you, sweetheart." 

He rose on shaking knees to brace his arms on the bed. The cool air of the room touched his back when Claude moved back on his haunches, his thighs bracketing Lorenz's and positioning himself. Lorenz cried out when he felt Claude breaching him, slowly at first; even if everything about this time felt frenzied and heated and feverish, Claude took his time for this, until, groaning deep in his throat, his hips were flushed against Lorenz. 

"Move," Lorenz commanded, trying himself to move but getting pinned to the bed when Claude braced himself with a hand between his shoulder blades, pushing Lorenz's face into the warmth of the sheets. 

And Claude complied, hips retreating and snapping forward—once, twice, and beyond counting—thrusting long and deep inside, each time pressing on that spot inside Lorenz that made his cock weep onto the sheets below. Claude picked up speed in no time, one of his hand gripping with bruising strength Lorenz's hip to drag him back to his cock with every thrust, hard and fast now, the sounds of their bodies meeting time and time again mixing with Claude's soothing words and Lorenz's unchecked gasps. 

Every thrust crowned with a gasp, every breath raised to a cry. A familiar heat coiled tightly one final time inside him and then Claude had wrapped his hand around his straining cock, and his whole body trembled for an endless moment before tensing, until he spilled his pleasure on the sheets and over Claude's hand, moving until he was drained. 

Body heavy and pliant, muscles loose, Claude moved him until he found himself staring up at him, at the heat in his eyes and his chest darker where he was flushed, sweat fresh on his shoulders and dampening his chest hair. And lower, where he was still hard and leaking, cock jutting from the opening of his trousers that Lorenz had only bothered to unlace. Goddess, he noticed as if from a distance, he was still wearing his boots. 

Claude slotted their lips together, clumsy with frustration and almost-reached climax; finding his strength Lorenz covered his pumping hand with his own, making a tight fist into which Claude thrust his hips, and moved his other hand to stroke Claude's chest thumbing a hard nipple. 

His breath fell hot on Lorenz's ear as Claude shuddered, mouthing some barely understood words against his neck as he reached completion with a raw sound that seemed to be wrenched from his lungs, covering Lorenz's hand with white and collapsing on him, drawing all the breath from his lungs. 

Only Claude's body over him kept his sweat from cooling once stillness commanded their muscles. Claude—his back uncovered—shivered. 

Now that he paid attention and that their heated breaths didn't break the silence, the sounds from the courtyard reached them through the windows; the unmistakable hustle and bustle of servants readying their masters' valuables; the roars of the wyverns demanding their breakfast, because the lord whose fort they had borrowed for the night had begged the Almyrans not to let their animals plunder his livestock; a raised voice cursing after what sounded like the wheel of a wagon splintering. 

Uncharacteristically, no sounds, save faint breathing, came from the man laying on him. 

"Aren't you going to feed your beast?" said Lorenz, burrowing his fingers in Claude's hair. 

"She has a name, you know," Claude said, raising his weight from Lorenz and sitting by his side. "Oh, no."

"What is it?" Lorenz asked, not much preoccupied because Claude's shoulders were shaking slightly, a smile beneath the hand pressed to his mouth. 

"Nothing, it's nothing," he said unconvincingly. "Will you look at that?" His hand unearthed his—now wrinkled—shirt from the foot of the bed. He wiped Lorenz's skin first, with economical movements now that they truly needed to start readying themselves. 

"Claude," Lorenz warned. 

After wiping himself off, Claude relented; his lips didn't cooperate with his attempt at seriousness though, nor did his eyes, wrinkling at the corners. He said, "It's just that Barbie does _not_ appreciate when I...smell all over of you." 

The look on Lorenz's face and the impetus with which he sat up brought a new wave of laughter from Claude. 

"You are telling me your beast—"

"Barbie—"

"Its name is Barbarossa—"

"Barbie for friends."

"_Your wyvern scorns my scent?_" 

Claude pressed his lips together in a futile attempt to stop himself from smiling. Lorenz did not find this conversation particularly amusing. 

"And what is it about my scent that is so offending?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. 

"Aw, Lorenz, don't be like that. She just gets huffy about it. Nader thinks she's jealous. She'll be difficult during the morning until she gets over it."

"This is ridiculous. Jealous!" Then, with sudden realization: "Is this why you have been traveling with the Almyrans during all of our journey back to Derdriu?" 

"No matter how hard I try she won't budge and fall back to your position. It's not my fault! And you have to admit," he continued, a hand touching his chest, "she was first in my heart, long before you arrived—"

Lorenz scoffed. "Well, better go wash up by yourself, then. As much as I would love to see you thrown off I do not think our politics can afford it just now." 

"See? Both of you want to see me fall to my death on occasion. You're very much alike, both my sweethearts—" Lorenz rounded on him then, causing Claude to leap from the bed in the direction of the vanity, where a couple of towers were folded next to the washing bowl filled with clean water. The sound of his unrestrained laughter followed him. 

Despite his frown and words, his chest was filled to the brim with lightness, levity and happiness that he would not let be weighed down by the letter discarded on the desk. Consciously, he tried to map this feeling in his heart to call upon it when Claude's departure drew nearer, when his nights were spent alone instead of in the arms of this wonderful, unbelievable man. 

He washed after Claude. Judging by the sliver of intensely blue sky visible through the windows, the sun would accompany them throughout their journey today, not clouds in the horizon. 

Claude, already dressed long before him, as usual, didn't leave the room; stalling was not part of his routine. 

"Lorenz?" 

"Mm?"

Waiting until they were face to face, Claude said, "Thank you." He ran his fingers through the curtain of Lorenz's hair, careful not to disarrange it now that Lorenz had brushed it to perfect elegance. "For understanding. The world really would be a dull place without you." 

And to hear the words he once said to Claude repeated back to him, and coming from someone like Claude of all people, who found the world a never-ending wonder, worth of his every effort—it made his heart clench painfully in his chest. 

"Do not vanish. That is all I ask," said Lorenz, managing to form words past the knot in his throat. 

Claude let his lips stretch into a slow smile, as rare as it was sincere. 

"The day I vanish, you're coming with me." 

Lorenz bent his neck to brush their lips together; in promise, and agreement, and eternal wonder. 

**Author's Note:**

> Claude: "And Barbie of course--"  
Lorenz: "Do not ruin this."


End file.
